ex-Stripe, Twitter, Google, Yahoo. Startup advisor. Coaching PMs through my courses.
Your life as a leader will change forever when you can see that you are so overwhelmed at work because you are busy solving problems that you could just have prevented or problems that should not be solved in the first place. Good judgment is the ultimate productivity hack. Of course, while many might nod along as they read these words, some are very likely quite certain that sadly this observation does not apply to their particular job. So they are doomed to continuing the time-honored corporate tradition of always being overwhelmed, and even showing impressive selflessness as they cascade this overwhelm down within their org.
My two cents. A lot of these issues can be resolved through operations management practices. Getting transparency to WIP, improved reporting, team structures that allow for decentralized decision making (inform vs ask). Unfortunately not many companies seem to treat Operations Management as a function, which is a big part of how we end up in this situation in the first place.
People often have a reactive mindset because it’s easier to react than to lead and influence the environment. Fear of being disliked drives them to choose vanity metrics, equating busyness with productivity. Without real priorities, they focus on immediate, less strategic tasks. But how can we shift this mindset towards proactive leadership and meaningful impact?
"Preventing problems" often involves short-term pain, which is why many PMs look the other way (and ultimately leads them to long-term pain). Start to ask yourself "What would I do if I weren't afraid?", and do those things now.
100% agree and some of these can be solved by trusting people around you and delegating. Not everything needs to be solved by the Leader.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. This is such an important trait, and one that very few are adept in.
Being able to JUDGE b/w what's worth your time. And What's just irrelevant is a skills that comes with time But sadly not many young folks are getting the scope to be there.
Folks here might interpret the word “leader” here and think that this post is meant only for higher level folks. Surely so, but this is also pertinent to all individual contributor (IC) roles and esp. for IC PMs as well. Everyone should take note 👆
I absolutely agree! As a product leader, I often get asked how I have so much free time to think. My answer is simple: I work hard to prevent problems. Most day-to-day product issues are known and can be mitigated in advance.
Very well summed up...
Business Systems Analyst @ Intuit | x-Meta, x-Samsung
1wI'm not a leader in my company, but I think about this A LOT because I'm operationally minded and like to make work less work for people. I think this is a system and/or cultural problem around delivery expectations and dependency planning. I find a lot of individual contributors and leaders recognize this need, but are caught in the crosshairs tradeoffs of doing the right thing (pursuing the strategic priority) vs doing the thing right (building in a way that doesn't accumulate tech debt, which might be longer).